Shabana Mahmood MP: speeches

Speeches

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  Let me thank the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks of personal respect, which are shared across this House. I thank him for that and for the important issue he raises. I hope to move to a position where the combined impact of the changes in the review and the work we are doing with the Women’s Justice Board mean that we see a huge drop in the number of female prisoners. I am particularly keen to ensure that pregnant women and mothers of young children are not anywhere near our female prison estate in future. Of course, for serious offenders we will always need to make sure that prison is an option, but the vast majority of women go to prison on short sentences for much less serious offences and we need to turn that around.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is a day of shame for the Conservative party. I am sorry to see that the attitude of Conservative Members today is shameless. He makes a very important point on policing. I have had a good conversation with police leaders. I am determined to use the national Criminal Justice Board to ensure that every part of the criminal justice system is aligned and that we take into account all the interactions—based on this review, and on the upcoming criminal courts review—and think about the impact they have not just on the bit of the justice system I am directly responsible for, but on the wider criminal justice system, including policing as a whole.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  Let me be clear: we will be adding prison places to the estate, and we will be filling them up. The prison population will rise year on year by the end of this Parliament, but my hon. Friend is right that the measures we have announced today stabilise the prison population. As a whole country, we will have to do better at ensuring that our prisons are churning out better citizens, rather than better criminals. When we know that 80% of offenders are reoffenders, there is clearly much work to be done in this area.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  After some months in this job facing the shadow Ministers, I am afraid that nothing about their behaviour surprises me any more. I will take notice—as, I think, will the country—when the Conservatives finally offer an apology for the absolute abject mess they left behind.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend puts it very well, and he is absolutely right. We have made more progress on the deportation of foreign national offenders than the previous Government and we will go further. We accept the review’s recommendations on reducing the threshold for early removal from 50% to 30%. For offenders who get less than three years in prison, we will work with the Home Office on proposals to move to immediate deportation.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  This Government will make sure we are running a prison system that is sustainable and not on the point of collapse, so that we can ensure that dangerous offenders in this country are still locked up. We will make progress on our broader mission to halve the level of violence against women and girls over 10 years.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an incredibly powerful point and she is absolutely right. When we have a prison system on the point of collapse, it is not as if the criminals do not know that that is happening. That is why it is imperative that we get our system under control and ensure there is always a prison place available for those who have to be locked up to keep the public safe. Her point about winning votes shows the approach taken by the previous Government: they put themselves first, not the country first.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  I very much hope that the position for Welsh women will be the same as for women in England, which is that we see a huge reduction in the number of women in Wales and England entering the female prison estate. That is because the combination of the measures David Gauke recommends, in particular on short sentences, will mean that fewer women go to prison. I will, of course, work with colleagues across Wales to look at what more we can do on accommodation provision. I know that there is no specific centre in Wales—the right hon. Lady and I have discussed that previously. It was a promise made by the previous Government without any funding attached to it, so I was not able to make decisions when I first came into office that could reverse that, but we will work with the Women’s Justice Board and others to ensure that the offer for women who are now no longer going to prison is still strong and helps them on their rehabilitation journey.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to the organisations in my hon. Friend’s constituency; such voluntary organisations play a hugely important role in helping the justice system to succeed in rehabilitating offenders. We will continue to work closely and build on the review’s recommendations in this area.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady makes a good point. I pay tribute to the work that is going on in her constituency. As I have said before, 80% of offenders in this country are reoffenders. That tells us how broken our system is, and how imperative it is that we sort it out.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  I shall take my hon. Friend’s early bid for further building in her constituency under advisement immediately.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady raises an important point. The combination of the measures that we are accepting from the review will mean that we will see a huge reduction in the number of women going to prison. Approximately two thirds go in for sentences of less than one year and, as the hon. Lady knows, many of those women are themselves victims of domestic abuse. In future, we expect the numbers to drop very significantly, and I know we will make progress in that regard. I have set out an ambition to see fewer women prisoners and, ultimately, to have fewer women’s prisons. Turning to residential alternatives to custody, the hon. Lady will know that I have set up the Women’s Justice Board. It is well represented, including by those who have personal experience of Hope Street, and we will work with the Women’s Justice Board as we roll out further changes to the female estate.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This Government are determined to clean up the mess left by the previous Conservative Government and to put victims first, cut crime and make our communities safer.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right to remind the House that 80% of offenders in our country are reoffenders, which tells us that our system is broken. It tells us that our prisons are creating better criminals, not better citizens, and this is something we absolutely have to turn around if we are to protect victims and cut crime.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  Mr Speaker, if I were waiting for respect from Opposition Members, I would be waiting for a long time, so it is a good job that I do not need it. The shadow Secretary of State talks about “iron bars”, but he was part of a Government that did not build the prison places that this country needs. Unlike him, I take responsibility, and it has fallen to me to clean up the mess that he and his party left behind. In case there is any confusion, let me spell out what happens when he and his party leave our prison system on the brink of collapse, which is exactly what they did, and set out the prospect that faced me on day one, when I walked into the Justice Department. When prisons are on the verge of collapse, we basically have only two choices left at our disposal: either we shut the front door, or we have to open the back door. The right hon. Gentleman’s party knew that that was the situation it was confronted with, but did it make any decisions? No, it just decided to call an election instead and did a runner. The public put the Conservatives in their current position. If they ever want to get out of that position, I suggest that they start by reckoning with the reality of their own track record in office. In any other reality, they should have started already with an apology. Conservative Members have had many chances to apologise to the country for leaving our prisons on the point of absolute collapse, but they have never taken them. Frankly, that tells us everything that anyone needs to know about the modern Conservative party.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  What puts the whole country at risk, including current, future and potential victims of crime, is letting our prison system collapse, and I will never let that happen. The measures we are taking forward from the review today are designed to make sure that this country never runs out of prison places ever again. I will ensure that there is ample time for debate and discussion across this House as we bring our legislation forward.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  The review recommends immediate deportation—meaning “as quickly as possible”, because we still have to detain people before we can get them on a plane and back to their country of origin—for sentences of under three years. We are going to work up proposals on that with the Home Office. For more serious offenders with sentences of over three years, we are going to bring the threshold down from 50% to 30%.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  That issue is why already today I have announced measures to toughen up community punishment, and we will be going further in some areas than even the review recommends. I absolutely agree that community punishment has to maintain the confidence of the public. Like all other Members, I am a constituency Member of Parliament, and I want my constituents to be able to see community punishment as real punishment. It is on us to make sure that it is worthy of that name. That is why I am considering going further on unpaid work, working with businesses to see whether salaries could be paid into a victims fund. That might be one model. I want to see offenders filling potholes and cleaning our streets, and I will be working with local authorities to ensure that we go as far as we can, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that this Government are committed to toughening up community punishment and making sure that it maintains the confidence of the public.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  The shadow Secretary of State talks about serious Government—if the Government that he was a part of had ever been serious, they would have built more than 500 prison places in 14 years in office— [ Interruption. ] He is a new convert to the prison-building cause. He and his party have never stood up in this Chamber and apologised for adding only 500 places—

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  I will repeat the point I have made to the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde). We know that there is a particular concern about what the presumption against short sentences might have meant for breaches of protective orders, and we know that issue is of real concern for domestic abuse victims. We want to ensure that those orders are not rendered useless because those who breach them are not seeing any prison time at all. The specific circumstances surrounding this type of violence against women need a very specific response, which is why we have already said that we will make that exclusion, and I will work with Members across the House to identify where we can make further progress.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we are already deporting more foreign national offenders than the previous Government. We are taking forward the measures from the Gauke review to speed up and get more foreign offenders out of our system and back to their countries of origin.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to the right hon. Member, his father and magistrates all over our country. They do an incredibly valuable job of keeping our justice system going. In fact, magistrates deal with 90% of all criminal cases. The right hon. Member is referring to prolific offending: the people who keep coming back, cycling in and out of the system. The review recommends that we switch to a model of intensive supervision courts, where a judge is in charge of making sure that a treatment programme is adhered to. We will take that forward, and I will set out more proposals when we bring forward the legislation. The early pilots—which, in fairness, were started under the previous Government—have shown very positive progress in helping those offenders to turn their lives around and break the cycle of addiction or mental health problems that often leads to prolific offending. We will build on that work.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman will know that the track record of his party in government was to run prisons boiling hot, with violence off the charts. The shadow Justice Secretary has been showing a huge amount of concern for prison officers and the violence they face in our prisons. I would have hoped that the Conservative party might welcome some incentivisation in our prison system to make sure we can run safer prisons and keep our prison officers safe. Making sure that people follow the rules, and that that is how they can earn an earlier release, means that those who break the rules will serve longer in prison.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman may have seen that just last week, when the Home Secretary set out the immigration White Paper, we announced that we are reviewing the use of article 8 in relation to immigration cases, and we will bring forward our proposals on that in due course. We will not allow the misuse of our courts and the use of article 8 to enable people who have no right to be in this country to stay in this country. That will require changes to the immigration rules, which the Home Secretary is working on.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  Let me reassure the hon. Lady that this is a huge uplift in funding for probation. It is a £1.6 billion budget as it stands, and it will increase by up to £700 million by the end of the spending review period. We have already invested in piloting AI and other technology designed to improve productivity, where AI can complete much of the paperwork that a lot of probation officers spend far too much of their time on, often repeating the same information in different documents. That shows huge promise. We will roll that out at pace to give probation officers more time with the offenders in front of them, doing the thing that only a human can do, which is to get to grips with what is driving that offender’s behaviour and have a plan to tackle it, including by accessing treatment programmes and other things in the community. We are determined to make sure that the Probation Service can rise to the scale of the challenge. The funding will help with that, as will our investment in that technology.